Andre Villas-Boas: Hopes Spurs meet his former club Chelsea in the Europe League

Having finished second in Group J, Spurs will not be seeded in the second round of the competition, meaning they could face teams who have dropped down from the UEFA Champions League, such as Benfica and Olympiakos.

Villas-Boas will not be able to take on former club Chelsea in the next round as teams from the same country cannot face each other until the last 16 but he thinks they should not be in the competition at all.

"I think it's extremely unfair," he said. "It would be much fairer if the clubs came in to the Europa League when they are knocked out of the last 16 of the Champions League.

"You can't give a bonus to teams who have failed, and in the situation as it stands, teams fail in the Champions League and are promoted to the Europa League, which, in my opinion, is a massive bonus.

"I've not made this up today. I have said this in UEFA meetings before. It's up to them to decide but I think it's not fair."

Despite this, Villas-Boas believes the clubs could cross paths later in the competition.

"Sometimes it's destiny," he said. "Hopefully if we go through we can meet each other.

"They have a team that can win the trophy, so they will be up to the late stages of the competition. We hope to do so.

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t's wrong to be making a joke out of Bender's name at the expense of gay people. It's the kind of childish, uncivilised thing that Football365 would deride and ridicule if it was another media outlet saying. Why is there a need for jokes like this? Does it make your writers feel like men? F365 might suggest that I 'lighten up', but it is genuinely traumatic for people who have been oppressed all their lives to be the butt of jokes, and to be told...

ou can't blame De Gea for wanting to leave, he has enough to do in front of goal as it is as well as taking on the role of Man Utd's version of Derek Acorah in trying to contact and organise a defence that isn't there.